Justice for the Disaster Master

A judge says tort king Stanley Chesley is liable for bilking clients.

Updated Aug. 12, 2014 9:05 p.m. ET

Class-action kingpin Stanley Chesley built a career gaming the legal system for his financial benefit, so there is some justice in watching that system catch up to him. A Kentucky court has ordered that the lawyer known as the "Master of Disaster" is liable for millions that he and associates bilked from their clients.

In 2001 Mr. Chesley negotiated a $200 million diet-drug litigation settlement. Two attorneys in the case later went to jail for cheating their own plaintiffs out of all but $46 million (23%) of...